Explore "The Glory of the Pharaohs" by Arthur Weigall on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In the Dresden _Nachrichten_, a newspaper of considerable standing, an article appeared in the second year of the late war, in which a well-known German writer advocated a ruthless attack upon the antiquities and art treasures of Italy.
"If Italian statesmen," he said, "have imagined that the art treasures in their country are a species of insurance against a too energetic conduct of the War on Germany's part, they will experience some very bitter disappointments. " He tells the Italian people that the well-being of the least significant German soldier -- that is to say, any oaf from the lowest grade of German life -- is of more value than the most magnificent gem of ancient or modern art; and in conclusion he declares that "when the monuments and cathedrals, the statues and the pictures, the churches and the palaces, of Venice, Milan, Florence and Rome, feel the sharpness of the German sword, it will be -- and God knows that it will be -- a just judgment that overtakes them."